


Priority: Thedas

by amarmeme



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Inquisitor Shepard, Pre-ME2, first encounters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:49:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26320684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amarmeme/pseuds/amarmeme
Summary: Jane Shepard should have died in space, but instead wakes up in a primitive cell with a curious mark on her hand. Her priority is getting off the planet. The lack of technology isn't going to help matters at all.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Shepard (Mass Effect)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	Priority: Thedas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nuclearmuffins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearmuffins/gifts), [Corina (CorinaLannister)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorinaLannister/gifts), [storiofmylife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiofmylife/gifts).



The planet was a backwater.

Shepard was alive, though fairly battered. Her hardsuit was piled in a corner of the dark room, and even from a distance the helmet seemed damaged beyond repair. It was a wonder she’d not died in the vacuum of space, gasping for air. 

Shackles kept her in place. Testing them would only provide sound for her captors to investigate. The last time the guards had checked, Shepard pretended to be unconscious. She watched them walk away and noted how primitive their weapons were. Swords and shields? Plate mail? It was clear this was a primitive nation. One that had never made contact beyond the borders of their own world. 

That could be a problem.

Her greatest concern was for her crew -- those who had survived the attack. Had they been rescued, or were they similarly stranded on this planet? If she herself was chained, could her crew have been treated worse? 

Two women came to interrogate her. Both were striking figures, a hooded spy with a shock of red hair just like hers and a brash warrior type. They began to speak and she could not reply. Their language was unintelligible. The warrior woman's tone heightened though, perturbed that Shepard did not respond. She grabbed Shepard's hand, the one with the curious wound, and held it aloft, stretching Shepard in ways she didn't want to be. Her body ached from falling out of the sky and landing on the hard-packed earth. 

The hand sparked bright green and Shepard flinched. It was doing it again. She did not need to glow another color. 

The women exchanged heated words, disagreeing over Shepard's head, and by mid-sentence the translator kicked in.

"... to the forward camp ... take to the rift."

Some of it provided context -- if there was a forward camp then these people were in the middle of some kind of war -- but what kind of rift? Presumably nothing metaphorical if she was being _taken_ there. Was it a fissure in the ground, perhaps a canyon? 

The warrior yanked her to her feet. If only there was a way to turn on her omnitool. Then she could access the translator settings to provide feedback, enabling the women to hear her words played back in their language. Shepard lifted her arm aside as they tried to switch her chains for a rope. The warrior assumed the worst, checking Shepard hard, drawing a frustrated grunt out of Shepard's mouth. 

"So you are not mute," she replied. Her eyes rolled as she tightened the rope. 

"You still won't understand unless I switch the translator to play back." 

The woman groaned and looked to her partner. "Do you speak -- whatever that was?" 

The spy grew closer, tilting her head. The movement was smooth as silk. Shepard was more concerned about her than the warrior, but even without a gun Shepard was dangerous. "You can understand us?" she asked. Her eyes reflected the light of a brazier and glowed with interest. 

Shepard nodded then motioned toward her left arm. "Yes, I just need to switch the feedback on."

The spy smiled despite only guessing from Shepard's gestures.

"Cassandra, let her access her left arm." 

_Smart woman._

"Are you certain--"

"No, but I believe there's no harm in it."

They had no idea the kind of damage she could normally do with access to her omnitool. But in this primitive world there with nothing to hack. Shepard wasn't even sure her omnitool would work. There was a brazier on the wall, which meant this civilization hadn't discovered electricity yet. 

Cassandra, the warrior, loosened the rope. Shepard could finally use both hands and activated the tool. Orange light flooded the dark cell and she sighed in relief. It worked. The women gasped, sharing furtive glances while Shepard navigated to the translator settings and enabled feedback. Normally, everyone had a translator. It was too messy to listen to what they were saying and your own words being translated back. But in rare situations where a translator was on the fritz, it was extremely helpful for a single translator to process both parts of an exchange. It was irritating as all hell, but the circumstances called for it. 

She flicked away the omnitool and spoke calmly. 

"Do you understand me now?" Lagging a second behind was the translator's robotic voice repeating her sentence in whatever the local language was. She wasn't sure of the accuracy, but she was glad she'd recently done the latest software update. 

"Yes," said the spy. She seemed intrigued by the turn of events. The warrior less so, skeptically eyeing Shepard in her exo-suit. 

"I am Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard, Systems Alliance. Captain of the SSV Normandy. My crew and I were shot down in space by unknown combatants and I ended up here." 

She realized most of that would make a lick of sense. They nodded along, and she waited for the playback to stop before her next request. 

"I understand my presence is confusing and I'm also not clear on what happened. But if you'd let me speak to your commanding officer, I'm sure we can reach an agreement on how to proceed." 

Her audience looked at one another and conveyed a series of looks and a few words in another language. The translator didn't know what to make of it yet. By the way they held each other's confidence, Shepard had a distinctive sense that these two were close partners. Best guess was the situation was quite unusual, even beyond her unwelcome appearance. Whatever war raged outside had these women quite desperate for answers if they were willing to let her speak and considered her cooperation. 

The spy addressed her at last, amusement writ on her pale features. “We shall take you to the commander and see what he thinks.” The warrior groaned in disgust. 

Shepard’s concerns tripled once they left the cell. Not only was she stranded, but there was a hole in the sky that looked like the light coming from her hand and dozens of unknown creatures spilled from it. They also gained a few companions along the way, a short man with a broad set of shoulders and a heavy crossbow, and a slender, bald man with a staff. The slender one had grabbed her hand and forced her to close what he called a rift. 

_So_ , Shepard thought. _Not a canyon._

The pulse of energy from the mark in her palm wasn't that dissimilar from her biotics. But when using it, static interference played in her head, slightly jarring. Kaidan would have tried to figure out what was going on, how this green energy worked. Shepard ignored the tug on her chest whenever someone from the Normandy popped into her thoughts. She couldn't decide if thinking about her crew would be motivational or cause her to sink into despair. It was important to remain focused on the mission at hand, which was getting off this planet. 

Fortunately, both of the men seem nonplussed by the translator, which made moving along much easier. They carried onward to a broken-down wall. On the other side, a group of soldiers fought the creatures her companions called demons in a field of rubble. The demons were evasive. Swords and shields seemed fairly ineffective, every other swing or slash wasted on a target that floated above the battlefield. 

Shepard took a deep breath and launched a singularity, pulling the demons toward a gravity well. She gritted her teeth as her biotics rippled over her in a blue wave. The same scratchy sound filled her head like a jamming frequency, but she could bear it. 

No one moved. All eyes fell on Shepard and she growled at the gawking locals. 

"Hit the bad guys!" 

Cassandra moved first, followed by a man across the field in a fur-lined coat. The pair met before the singularity and sliced apart their vulnerable targets. Sweat broke out over her brow as the field became harder to sustain. Arrows arched over her head to land in their foes, as well as arching bursts of fire that landed square on their targets. After the last demon met its end she relaxed, the bodies falling swiftly to the ground. 

"The rift," the bald one yelled. "Use the mark."

She held her hand aloft and willed the mark to split open -- for more strange power to come rushing out of her body. The green light shot to the heart of the rift in the sky and sealed it shut with a satisfying pop. 

The man with the fur strode up to Shepard as she held her side. As she feared, pulling that stunt cost her. Pain radiated from her back, through her hips, the effects of the fall finally catching up. The man however, was easy to look at. Tall and well-built, his blond hair was smoothed back from a handsome face, a scar bisecting his upper lip. His amber eyes were sharply attuned to her, scanning her exo-suit with a look of concern. 

"What _are_ you?" 

Shepard laughed. That did not go over well; his brow fell in judgement. Hell if she cared. The fact she could laugh at all after her day was something. The reapers were still out there, her crew was at the mercy of space and she was alone in a place where no one had heard of the Systems Alliance. A good laugh was necessary, otherwise tears would stream down her face. 

"Ahhh." She sighed and cleared her throat. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard. The blue stuff's mine -- the green -- I have no clue where that came from." She held up her hand and it sparked and fizzled. 

He blinked at the translator, but got over it quickly. "You're an apostate." 

She knew what that word meant on Earth. Were these religious wars? Did she fall into the middle of a crusade? The way he held himself stiff told her it was not a good thing to be an apostate here.

"No, I'm a captain of a ship, based far from here. I'm afraid more detail at this moment would sound ... unbelievable."

"This entire day is beyond the limits of sense," he replied dryly. "Try me."

Oh, he was one of _those_ types. She grinned. Shepard didn't get to where she was without shaking a few sticks in the mud. 

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Shepard launched into her day so far, from the attack to the moment she thought she was going to die, to how excruciating falling out a hole in the sky was. She skipped few details, aside from names and words that wouldn't even translate -- like reaper, that would be an extended conversation for later. The expressions on his face moved between confusion and intrigue and eventual stoicism as she ended her tale with a flourish. 

"And that brings me to you, commander. I don't suppose you have a secret way to communicate beyond the planet?" 

"No," he replied. He turned to the pair of women, shaking his head. They watched the exchange with rapt attention. "Just ... no."

Shepard smiled wryly as Cassandra stepped forward. Her eyes wide with imaginative delight, still wondering over Shepard's words. This one was a romantic, Shepard could tell. 

"There's another rift, a larger one we have called the breach. Close it and we will talk further about ... getting you back to where you belong. Though I do not know much of what you spoke of. We can discuss matters after."

Well, it wasn't a comms tower with connection to council space, but she'd take it. Any step closer to leaving this place. There was a reaper invasion to stop and Shepard couldn't afford to dally. These people couldn't afford that either, but they had no clue what was coming for them. 

"Lead the way," she said, gesturing ahead. "Tell me where to aim this thing and I'll do my damnedest." 

**Author's Note:**

> This treat turned into how might that introduction go more than anything! But I love the idea of this pairing and how Cullen would have to get over his skepticism to hear Shepard out. Of course, this Shep doesn't mind a challenge. 
> 
> This could be a really fun story going forward and I wish there was all the time in the world for me to flesh this out for this exchange!


End file.
